A friend of mine once made the observation that too often folks who think they are on a spiritual journey are actually watching a travelogue. Over the years I’ve decided that it still holds if you leave out the “spiritual,” i.e. people often believe that it is just as good to vicariously experience an activity as it is to actually participate. It’s usually easier to read another book about homeschooling, or child training, or farming, or hospitality, or bible study, or simple living, or discipleship, than it is to take what you already know and put it into practice.
There are many things that can only be learned in practice, by making an effort and failing and trying again. Books can tell you some useful things about how to train a child, but the only way to learn how to teach your own child is to get on with it. It’s possible that you are struggling because you lack some vital piece of knowledge that the parents of smart and well-behaved possess. But it’s more likely that those parents have no special knowledge, but simply plunged ahead with a heart for raising their children to the best of their ability, and through much struggle of their own they figured out what was needed to raise their own children properly.
Legend has it that Euclid was engaged by Ptolemy I of Greece to teach him geometry. As Euclid began to work with him through the proofs of the Elements, Ptolemy complained about how long and tedious the process was, and asked if there wasn’t a quicker way to learn the subject. Euclid’s famous reply was, “Sire, there is no royal road to geometry.” As with many other things, the learning is in the doing.
I was pleasantly surprised this afternoon when while reading Chad Degenhart’s weblog I ran across another version of my friend’s observation, made by none other than Richard Baxter:
A subtle hindrance to the heavenly life is CONTENTMENT WITH THE MERE PREPARATION for it. When we are satisfied with merely studying of heavenly things, or of talking with one another about them, we miss the life itself. None are more in danger of this trap than those who are employed in leading the devotions of others, especially preachers of the Gospel. O, how easily may such be deceived! While they read and study of heaven, preach and pray and talk of heaven—is this not the heavenly life? Unfortunately, all this is only preparation. This is only collecting the materials, not erecting the building itself, let alone dwelling in it. As he that sits at home may draw exact maps of countries, and yet never see them nor travel towards them, so may you describe to others the joys of heaven, and yet never come near it yourself. This temptation is so subtle because studying and preaching about heaven does resemble a heavenly life more than does thinking and talking about the world. This is apt to deceive us. This is to die for thirst while we draw water for others.
And now that I think about it, a vignette I just read in Eric Brende’s book Better Off speaks to exactly the same point. Brende and his wife were college students from Boston who were curious to learn exactly how little technology they could live with before the lack of it became painful. They made contacts in an Amish-like community and arranged to live with them for a couple of years. At one point Brende mentioned to one of the elders of the community that very few of his fellow students ended up making a living using the knowledge they acquired in college; the elder was surprised, and teased him with this bit of doggerel:
He who studies, studies, studies
And does not practice what he knows
Is like one who plows, plows, plows
And never sows
